Pity the Living ♔ Tom Riddle

7 || Olga

September 1936.

Durmstrang Institute.

Gisela

The students swarmed into the castle in flocks, each group distinctly distinguished by their age and nationality, at least four different languages being muttered throughout the halls of the magnificent castle. They had been separated between the genders at the castle gates, heading to separate wings of the castle where their dormitories were located. Gisela watched from her perch in the library that looked out across the front courtyard and into the mountains as groups of gossiping girls made their way inside, indicating that she should retire to her rooms. The first assembly of students was not until after breakfast the following morning, so perhaps she could attempt to acquaint herself with her fellow classmates.

Already in her uniform, she skipped back through the empty higher floors to the first-year girl's quarters, fidgeting with the sides of her pleated black skirt as the sounds of fast chatter in foreign languages got louder and louder. She turned the corner to find at least a hundred girls crowded around the entrance to the dormitories, all of them well above her height, suddenly running in all at once. She wondered what all the rush was about until she distinctly heard something about 'getting the best room for a group' exclaimed in German. She was surprised that girls would be eager to share a dorm, rather than have their own rooms, but she supposed they didn't understand the privilege of the latter.

After they all piled through the door, she slowly made her way in, heading to her room seemingly invisible to the frantic and excited girls running around her. The first years claiming beds in the three large shared dormitories, with ten beds each, clearly organised by language. The first room she passed she could hear the laughter of Germans, the only language she could understand, all talking about who got the best bed. The second room was filled with Bulgarians, and although she could not understand their words, they sounded far more aggressive. The last dorm she could hear the sound of Polish chatter, far quieter than the voices from the previous two rooms. Then there were the smaller dorms, five beds each, with the respective languages being the reason for the choice obvious. There were two rooms of Romanians, followed by two rooms of students from Yugoslavia, a few different languages thrown around, then one room with Hungarians and one with Czechoslovakians. Then there were the ten private rooms, only one other of them occupied indicated by the newly closed door - obviously not a popular option.

She headed to her room, furthest from the entrance to the dorms, and shut the door behind her. She had no interest in socialising at this present moment, particularly when most of her classmates spoke in foreign languages. She would be enough of an outsider amongst the Germans. She began to settle into a book when her peace was rudely interrupted by a loud voice in German shouting through the door that there was a first-year meeting in the girl's common room. Gisela rolled her eyes but set her book down anyway, hopping up from her bed and exiting her room, at the same time as her only fellow single-roomer.

Gisela and the girl locked eyes, examining each other. The girl was a fair bit taller, with slick black hair tied back into a tight bun and blue eyes so big they almost looked unnatural, but beautiful all the same.

"Hello, I see we both prefer the privacy of our own room," she stated in German, but with an obvious thick accent.

"I couldn't imagine sharing," Gisela replied.

"I'm Olga, you are?"

"Gisela," she replied, in an almost perfect German accent.

"You're not with the rest of the Germans?" she asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.

"I'm not the most social," she replied, folding her hands together in anxiousness, "and I grew up in England."

"That makes two of us. I'm Russian but grew up in Paris, so I don't know anyone anywhere," she chuckled, before looking down the hall, "we should go join the girls."